A Man Must Nurture His Pet Peeves

I have one pet, but many pet peeves. My pet (if you can call her that) is a beautiful little Pug-Chihuahua mix named Elvira. She is eight pounds of love and fury, with a bundle of quirks and obsessive compulsive traits, making her a perfect companion.

​My pet peeves, on the other hand, are far less attractive. But they remain as much a companion as my beloved dog. I lovingly feed these pet peeves treats and other tasty morsels, keeping them alive and healthy, which may seem counterintuitive. Why nurture a peeve, when it offers only irritation, not love, as a true pet does. But a pet peeve gives back in other ways, especially if the peeve is rooted in common sense. Then, this pet peeve is a reminder that the good fight is never really won.

So, here are a few of my peeves, the ones that get all the attention in my head, and a fair share of the tasty treats, as well.

Thousands of twenty years olds march in the streets for social justice. Most are still in school, have never had a real job, beyond the gig they had working at McDonalds during the summer. They have no real life experience. All they have is what they’ve been taught, none of which comes from real experience, and all of which is highly selective. But, they don’t know this. They would have to get a clue about the real-world, in the hope that one day, they’ll get an actual clue. They are a highly sought after demographic for advertisers, however, who will pay a higher advertising rate to the various media outlets if they can attract a big enough audience of these consumer friendly twenty something's.

They can always be counted on to rally after another shooting of a Black man, by a cop. They will rush to judgment, assuming that evil has been perpetrated by a White supremacist society. If, after much rioting and looting, the evidence shows that no wrong was done by the cops, it is simply proof that White supremacy is so powerful that no dent can be made to its impervious exterior. Which, of course, requires more rioting and looting. This is circular logic at its best. The fact that we have a Black president and attorney general, senators, congress people, CEO’s, etc., is just a charade, I guess.

The media generally deals with such shooting tragedies by seeking the opinions of the most polarizing figures imaginable, thereby uniting the country in their fight against America’s true enemy, that being America herself. For most of the media, it’s a ratings game, so they have a vested interest in stirring the shit as furiously as possible.

If these angry children have nothing better to do, and there are no shootings in the news, they can always protest for a higher minimum wage. “$15. 00 an hour, that the ticket” they say. Even though, only about 2% of the American workforce earns the minimum wage, and only for a short period of time. Nobody told them this, however, so in their minds, capitalism is a sham, as is Americanism. “Socialism” is the hue and cry.

Do they know what socialism is, what money is, how an economy works, who pays the higher wage, what the likely effect will be? No. They don’t have the first clue, let alone a second or a third. But some smart grad student, at an elite school, will appear on a news show and regurgitate a handful of talking points, learned at the feet of their disgruntled professors, who, like the students, never had a real job, outside of their intellectual bubble. But they’re smart. They have a diploma that says so. So they don’t need no stinking real-world experience!

If these arrogant dunces were just going to disappear, to be heard from no more, ok. But that’s not what’s going to happen. They will become the next generation of leaders and teachers, whose ideas will form the basis for American society. And their polarizing ideology will be the seed that bears the poisonous fruit, which eventually chokes out all other life, leaving a barren landscape it its place. That is modern liberalism’s gift to the world. And, it is why it remains my wary pet, a peevish reminder of the battle ahead, today, tomorrow, always.